Time to catch up if we want to have free access to space

China claims to have a working version of NASA's impossible engine orbiting the Earth - and will use it in satellites 'imminently'Scientists in China claim they’ve created a working prototype of the ‘impossible’ reactionless engine – and they say they’re already testing it in orbit aboard the Tiangong-2 space laboratory.

The radical, fuel-free EmDrive recently stirred up controversy after a paper published by a team of NASA researchers appeared to show they’d successfully built the technology.

If the physics-defying concept is brought to reality, it’s said the engine could get humans to Mars in just 10 weeks.

But now, scientists with the China Academy of Space Technology claim NASA’s results ‘re-confirm’ what they’d already achieved, and have plans to implement it in satellites ‘as quickly as possible.’

Normally, satellites carry a quantity of fuel - reaction mass - and this allows them to be moved from one orbit to another. This is for replacing aging satellites (keeping a spare in the air) as well as targeting different locations for surveillance. Using the Em drive to move them will make them a lot smaller, lighter, and cheaper to launch.

The USA needs to get out in front of the crowd in basic research - we have been slacking for too long. We even have to bum a ride from the Russians when going to the space station.